Saylor URL: http://www.saylor.org/books Saylor.org
the digital age coming and nearly went out of business as a result. (Suffice it to say, you can now access
Encyclopedia Britannica online.) By contrast, when fuel prices hit an all-time high in 2008, unlike other
passenger airline companies, Southwest Airlines was prepared. Southwest had anticipated the problem,
and early on locked in contracts to buy fuel for its planes at much lower prices. Other airlines weren’t as
prepared and lost money because their fuel expenses skyrocketed. Meanwhile, Southwest Airlines
managed to eke out a profit. Collecting market intelligence can also help a company generate ideas or
product concepts that can then be tested by conducting market research.
Gathering market intelligence involves a number of activities, including scanning newspapers, trade
magazines, and economic data produced by the government to find out about trends and what the
competition is doing. In big companies, personnel in a firm’s marketing department are primarily
responsible for their firm’s market intelligence and making sure it gets conveyed to decision makers.
Some companies subscribe to news service companies that regularly provide them with this information.
LexisNexis is one such company. It provides companies with news about business and legal developments
that could affect their operations. Let’s now examine some of the sources of information you can look at to
gather market intelligence.
Search Engines and Corporate Web Sites
An obvious way to gain market intelligence is by examining your competitors’ Web sites as well as doing
basic searches with search engines like Google. If you want to find out what the press is writing about your
company, your competitors, or any other topic you’re interested in, you can sign up to receive free alerts
via e-mail by going to Google Alerts at http://www.google.com/alerts. Suppose you want to monitor what
people are saying about you or your company on blogs, the comment areas of Web sites, and social
networks such as Facebook and Twitter. You can do so by going to a site like WhosTalkin.com, typing a
topic or company name into the search bar, and voilà! All the good (and bad) things people have remarked
about the company or topic turn up. What a great way to seek out the shortcomings of your competitors.
It’s also a good way to spot talent. For example, designers are using search engines like WhosTalkin.com
to search the blogs of children and teens who are “fashion forward” and then involve them in designing
new products.